Cincinnati Correspondence

Submitted by Chuck0:

CINCINNATI CORRESPONDENCE

ON THE ROAD TO DC

As an activist I have been travelling around the states this
last month. Having left San Francisco my first stop was in Louisville
to attend the Permanent Autonomous Zone conference which was
a great success from my perspective. Autonomous Zones were discussed
with DIY punks and intentional communalists presenting their
off-the-grid lifestyles and ways that anti-authoritarian activists
can struggle without being contradicticly part of the same system
they oppose. Louisville was believed at the time to be a starting
point for actions against the World Bank and IMF which were to
convene in Washington, DC. We all know what horror has happened
since the initial call to action. DC turned into a pro-peace
convergence with mainstream groups opting out of actions while
the anti-authoritarians and socialists charged the Bush Administration
with racism and selective justice. A little noted component
of the convergence was the Homes Not Jails organized, "People's
Repo," which had little to do with traditional protest but carried
over into the them of autonomy from the greater populace, the
populace captured by corporate spins which have co-opted the
tragedy into marketing frenzies where Miller Beer is now peddled
in a call to peoples patriotism, the consumer society. The Repo
taught participants how to plumb their own house or squat, how
to compost human waste, how to build and repair abandoned homes
in the face of increasing homelessness and joblessness. I am
able to travel around not because of my white male priviledge,
or maybe so, but because I was laid-off from my job. So as an
IMCista I have gone off on travels through America to see what
it is that communities are doing to reclaim their lives from
the extremes of war frenzy-consumerism and terrorist conspiracies.
As I see it, we the people, are trapped by the consumerism of
the elite societal managers that decide our policies which lead
to terrorism, for I do not see many people actually believing
the terrorists acted merely out of insanity, for many people
understand the destruction our government has brought on others
while condemning the unbridled violence that such destruction
used by the terrorists has brought on the people of this land.
So I find myself in America's heartland where I grew up.

A CORNER OF OHIO

Cincinnati is a corner in America where the ghetto is still very
much a war zone, where the police can kill an unarmed black man
and not face any penalty, whether it is Roger, an Gulf War veteran,
struggling in the ghetto suffocated by the police while under
their control or Timothy fleeing out of fear and shot dead in
the back. Or the tens of other African Americans killed here
by the police. But the soldiers in the domestic governmental
terrorism--the police--are not the most devastating effect
of the war here. Over-the-Rhine, which once-upon-a-time sat next
to the Ohio canals, is a predominantly black community that resembles
a bombed out ghetto in Bosnia-Herzogovina that we saw on television
which of course we never cared much about. There are thousands
of abandoned buildings, sitting in ruined states, the streets
are strewn with trash and the police are nearly invisible since
the community revolted here in April. Today I attended a Community
Development hearing in the Cincinnati Council chambers where
a Clinton protege named Cranley attempted to end funding for
low-income housing in what was very much an attempt to bully
through legislation under the auspices of conservative councilman
Pat DeWine. Pat DeWine is a boyish councilman who is emboldened
in his condescension to others by his high power connections
to his brother Sen. Mike DeWine, who is connected to Ohio Governor
Taft. Who is descended from the Ohio Tafts which during their
day where the Bush's of America. Little changes in southwestern
Ohio. Power is much the same, and it is easy to understand why
the Underground Railroad didn't stop in Cincinnati because true
liberty for ex-slaves is not found here. Cranley's proposal for
Impaction of Public Housing would open the door way to only funding
public housing outside of the city, thus cutting off funding
for such an area as Over-the-Rhine. Similiar steps in the past
through manipulating Section 8 Housing vouchers has led to poor
people having to find housing outside the city because the vouchers
had previously been accepted by a slumlord, Danhart Realty, who
now has declared bankruptcy. Thus, 1500 units will go empty and/or
be redeveloped as market rate development investments, in other
words no matter what they will not be accessible to the people
of the Over-the-Rhine. John Cranley seems to believe his proposal
is somehow progressive in the same sense as Danesh D'Souza is
a progressive, "I don't hate black people but I don't want our
money going to them." At the hearings today, the conservative
DeWine and the "liberal" Cranley joined forces in obstructing
a fair hearing of the legislation. They limited public comment
to two minutes and attempted to cut-off credible criticism from
other elected officials. The suburban townships themselves showed
up to criticize the legislation, even though they would be beneficiaries
of federal dollars if passed. The townships pointed out that
the City can't even keep the trash off the streets--now they want
to push their problems onto the suburbs. A leading housing activist
in Over-the-Rhine commented: "We feel this law will strangle
our ability to do new development" and another added, "we are
told displacement doesn't exist but the reality is it does".

There are many compounding issues in Cincinnati, one the police
brutality, two the racism exhibited by conservatives and liberals
here and three the overall above average poverty has led to a
tinder box of social injustices. For example, only 35% of Cincinnati
residents own their own home, compared to a national average
of 67%. Community activists report that in Cincinnati there are
over 20,000 homeless people. But people are attempting make
things better even in the face of governmental obstruction which
no longer has it's citizen's interests at heart.

GENERATING CHANGE IN A BACKWARD SITUATION

It is an almost Orwellian contradiction that Cincinnati citizens
find themselves. The government does not act on the peoples' behalf
and those that work for positive change are labeled criminals.
As an elderly African American woman said to the council members,
" you have taken everything thorugh privatization...your treating
us like cattle...this is racism". When those that are sworn in
to have a people's mandate but end up abusing the people and
telling the people it is for their own good then we live in a
society of 1984. So what do people do. They attempt to organize
even when their marches are fired on by SWAT teams with loaded
shotguns. CopWatch is one such attempt. A cadre of idealistic
young people are attempting to organize a watchdog and human
rights group here to monitor police misconduct. The community
policing the police is not a new concept. It was established
in our own constitution through a set of checks-and-balances
that are no longer adhered to as the checkers are all too often
the same people as the balance. CopWatch holds their meetings
in the local shelter where hundreds of homeless people sit in
the main hall as young idealists try to brainstorm about fundraising.
(to get involved or donate contact Copwatch513@hotmail.com or
call 513.542-0281) One activist was forced to do CopWatch during
the Council hearings as two critics of the Conservative-Liberal
alliance against low-income housing were ordered removed by the
Conservative and the soldiers of domestic warfare moved in on
the critics to be excluded from the hearings. But even as citizens
where preparing a way to monitor the police acting on behalf
of vigilante public servants the federal vigilantes were preparing
to bomb Afghanistan.

Another group of concerned citizens formed up just hours after
the first bombs dropped on Kabul to protest our nations undefined
mission of fighting global terrorism. 60 people lined up against
the Federal Building holding placards (call 513.579.8547) Additionally,
students at the University of Cincinnati gathered to start planning
for their own actions, a speak out is planned on the UC campus
at the green near McMicken Hall. Tonight forty student organizers
gathered to discuss things, some shared their feelings on the
situation:

"sad that people are ready to give up their civil liberties for
promises of physical security"

"the main key here is education in this situation"

"the media has no real coverage, the war is secondary to football"

Tomorrow there will be an a demonstration against the Proctor
and Gamble corporation. P&G owns much of the influence here in
Cincinnati with it's corporate headquarters. Groups will be protestings
it's policies of globalization and also their policy of animal
testing in two labs in the countryside outside of Cincinnati.
Other people continue to focus on issues such as the environment
and education. The struggle is manifold here in Cincinnati.
But these problems are very deep and will require more laborers
than the few citizens here doing the work. More outreach will
be needed and many of us Ohioans that have left our home state
will need to comeback to help those that either can't leave or
refuse to give up on the rolling green hills of the Ohio Valley.
But change is possible but it is very difficult, for we have
the leadership of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union ( http://www.kwru.org
) to draw upon, and the actions of the Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty ( http://www.opac.ca ) to act upon. I will be leaving
Ohio for Toronto next as OPAC has planned a major action focused
on the issues affecting not just Toronto, but also Ohio and even
our liberal bastion of California.